"
"I also fired off both barrels once in May, at very nearly the same
spot. It was on a picnic one day. And it was done at your own request."
"That is another matter," answered Herr Mack shortly.
"Well, then, devil take it, you know what you have to do, I suppose?"
"Perfectly well," he answered.
Eva held herself in readiness; when I went out, she followed me; she had
put on a kerchief, and walked away from the house; I saw her going down
towards the quay. Herr Mack walked back home.
I thought it over. What a mind, to hit on that all at once, and save
himself! And those piercing eyes of his. A shot, two shots, a brace of
guillemots--a fine, a payment. And then everything, _everything_, would
be settled with Herr Mack and his house. After all, it was going off so
beautifully quickly and neatly...
The rain was coming down already, in great soft drops. The magpies flew
low along the ground, and when I came home and turned Asop loose he
began eating the grass. The wind was beginning to rustle.
XXII
A league below me is the sea. It is raining, and I am up in the hills.
An overhanging rock shelters me from the rain. I smoke my pipe, smoke
one pipe after another; and every time I light it, the tobacco curls up
like little worms crawling from the ash.
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